1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computers and software, and more particularly, to a scan system and method for providing users the ability to quickly and efficiently transfer documents and images from a scanner to a remote location.
2. Description of Related Art
Currently, scanning multiple pages with a flatbed scanner into an application program is fairly invasive. Typically, a user must raise the lid of the scanner and place a single document page on the scanning surface, or place the document in an automatic document feeder. Then, the user must launch a scanning application, navigate through a maze of scanning options, and finally transport the resulting scanned document into a target folder. If this folder is on a remote server, the user must then first connect and log-on to the remote server before downloading the resulting scanned document.
A key difficulty with saving image documents to a server on the Internet or Intranet, is that of simplicity for novice users. Typically, the prior solution for providing web page construction of scanned documents requires the user to (1) scan the document (2) connect to a remote server; (3) log-on to the remote server; (4) manually specify the destination folder; and (5) manually transfer the document to the remote server. Needless to say, each of the previous steps is a complicated and time-consuming task for even the most experienced scanner owner.
Different problems occur with other types of image-acquiring devices. These other types of image-acquiring devices include, for example, but are not limited to, digital cameras, digital videocassette recorder equipment, and the like. The problems for digital cameras, digital video cassette recorder equipment, and the like, include requiring proper adapters and cables for connecting to a target folder on a computer system, maintaining the correct version of device software for image execution, and the like, in addition to the problems mentioned above.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.